Nantucket

A truly amazing game, worthy of any salty sea-dog!

Nantucket is an indie strategy game about managing a whaling ship and chasing after the legendary whale Moby Dyck (yes I know it's a typo, Steam censorship is doing wonders here). It is the beginning of the 19th century, widely considered as the golden age of whaling. You are the sole survivor of The Pequod, a ship that hunted for Moby Dyck under captain Ahab's command and suffered a terrible demise. Having sworn to chase Moby Dyck for the rest of your days, you start again with a new ship and a fresh crew, following in Ahab's footsteps. The gameplay in Nantucket consist of sailing the globe while hunting whales (and sometimes pirates), trading materials and completing quests that you can pick up in various ports. You can also hire crewmembers, upgrade your ship or read about the current events in the world by reading newspaper. Your crew will consist of different classes, from cabin boys to sailors and harpooners. Each crewmember has different talents and abilities that you can use, whether it's a combat ability or a passive ability granting him some kind of bonus (like bonus to sailing speed when he's assigned to the helm). When your ship encounters a whale, you engage in combat with a whaleboat. A whaleboat can take up to three of your crew, allowing you to strategically combine their abilities. Once you get a bigger ship, you can have more than one whaleboat. The combat itself is turn-based and more or less straightforward, you'll get the hang of it immediately. Actually, the whole game is pretty simple when I think about it, you'll learn everything the game has to offer in about half an hour. Nantucket has a strong atmosphere and is very fun to play for the first several hours. However, it doesn't really feature much content and you can easily complete the main quest in under 10 hours. I'm a little disappointed with a low number of different quests, whale types, ship upgrades and content in general. The graphics are nice but I wish there was a scaling option for higher resolutions. The music score is great, hosting a couple of fitting background tunes as well as several high-quality shanties that I can't seem to get out of my head. Overall, despite the Nantucket's relative shallowness, I can honestly say that I rather enjoyed it. Nantucket is a brief breath of fresh air. It’s a simple game with a distinct atmosphere that's perfect when you feel like you've got nothing to play. Score (out of 10): [h1][b]6.5[/b][/h1]